


Her Dark Descent

by savanting



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Back when we thought Kylo Ren was a Sith, F/M, Gray Jedi, No Romance, One Shot, Pre-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Short One Shot, hints of Dark!Rey, lightsaber duels as metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25472422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savanting/pseuds/savanting
Summary: Her power intrigues him even as he disgusts her. One-Shot. (Originally Posted on LiveJournal 01/16/2016)
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Her Dark Descent

Not for the first time, curiosity had gotten the better of him.

The glow of her doubled-bladed lightsaber illuminates her face in the pooling shadows of the forest. Sweat drips down her forehead as she concentrates, so enraptured is she by her training on this remote planet where she has secluded herself. She is a speck of dust in the great flow of the force, but he still hones in on her as if he is an animal lured by a trap. However much his instincts tell him to retreat, to save this meeting—this battle—for another day, he still skulks in the shadows and watches her. She has been a flaw in his armor since the day he met her.

If he were smart—if he were the kind of apprentice his master was hoping to mold—then he would end it here. End _her_ here.

“I know you’re out there!” she screams suddenly, disrupting his reverie. But the words come as no surprise: just as surely as he feels her in the force, so does she feel him. “Stop being a coward and come out and face me!”

The word _coward_ makes his hand twitch toward the saber on his belt. But not yet. He won’t give her the satisfaction of coming straight to her call. Then he really would be admitting a weakness.

After a few scarce moments—long enough that he steadies the rapid thrum of his heart in his chest—he steps out into the clearing. His new mask is in place, another replica formed in the image of Darth Vader’s mask, and it does its job of keeping his face from betraying anything of sentiment.

But the force rippling between them is even more telling than his maskless face might have been. He and the girl just stare at each other for soundless seconds, all the more heavy with meaning and intent.

“Kylo Ren.” The way her mouth shapes his name, his chosen name, warrants more attention than he would normally pay. His heart missteps a beat, his pulse stuttering in response. She cocks her head, as if she has heard a whisper on the wind, and offers him a chilly smile. “It’s been a long time.”

 _Obviously not long enough,_ he thinks, bitter behind his mental walls. _Not long enough to have destroyed the very idea of you._ But that is more an after-effect of Supreme Leader Snoke’s mental probing—another word for torture—that he had suffered after his last defeat at her hands. The Supreme Leader had had more than enough to say about the mercy Kylo had shown her in the snowy forest of Starkiller Base. She may have seen it differently—each strike barely parried through her inexperience with a lightsaber—but he had dealt her no lasting blows. His own, the scar that cut across his face behind his mask, tingled with the memory of her lash with the lightsaber that had once been his in another life.

“Is it wise to train alone on a deserted planet when you’re wanted by the First Order?” he asks.

Her grip tightens on her lightsaber. “Are you here to capture me then?” she retorts, a challenge in her voice.

“Not yet, scavenger,” he says. “Not yet.”

“I’m not a scavenger anymore,” she says through gritted teeth, as if the very idea repulses her. Though he had seen in her mind that she had taken pride in her work, she had also been embarrassed by the drudgery life on Jakku had afforded her. A buried part of him had empathized with her even though he had lived a life of privilege before—well, before he had traded that life for something he wanted more.

 _Careful,_ something inside him whispers. _This girl will be your undoing if you keep showing compassion for her._

“Do you claim to be a Jedi?” he asks as he fights sounding too eager to know her answer.

She considers him through narrowed eyes for a long moment. “Not quite.”

Ah. There is something there—but she too has her walls up. Neither of them are eager to repeat the time he had tried—and failed—to pry information from her mind.

But he can guess what transpired to make her hesitate to align with the Jedi. He too has such a legacy in his past.

Behind his mask, he smiles thinly. “I take it Skywalker’s methods didn’t agree with you.”

She looks down at the lightsaber still held tight in her hand. “Luke and I didn’t see eye to eye on many things—but that’s neither here nor there.”

A chuckle escapes his lips. “Isn’t it? Don’t forget: I trained with him myself.”

A spark of something—interest?—lights in her eyes. “He’s an old codger,” she spits out, surprising him. “He wanted me to prove that I was worthy of being trained. He said I had so much anger at my parents bottled inside me, and if I wasn’t careful then…” She trails off, hesitant.

But he’s all too expectant. “Then?” he prompts.

“Then I would only be a step away from the dark side,” she finishes in a whisper.

He nearly laughs. Wasn’t that the same thing Luke had threatened him with time and again? But the words had been their own self-fulfilling prophecies. Didn’t the Jedi masters realize their warnings about the dark side drilled only more holes for doubt to creep in and consume?

Maybe the same could be said of the girl.

“The darkness is a comfort,” he says quietly, “much more than the burning sear of light.”

“So says the man who killed his own father,” she snarls, eager to separate the two of them, when really they aren’t so different. Not really.

Perhaps it’s time to take his leave. Before this exchange dissolves into a sparring match.

“The offer still stands,” he says, and her eyes widen as if she had expected him to unleash his new lightsaber instead of engaging her in more conversation. “You won’t get far training by yourself. You need a teacher.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, as if she’s considering. “I won’t go to the dark side,” she finally says.

“Maybe that’s not what I’m proposing,” he says—and he even surprises himself by saying the words. Shouldn’t he wish it, for her to fall to the darkness? Just as he did all those years ago?

But he isn’t here on the Supreme Leader’s orders. The choice to come here was his own, no one else’s.

His words catch her off-guard, from the way her eyes widen again and then narrow in suspicion. “What?”

Instead of answering, Kylo Ren turns his back to her. “We’ll see each other again,” he says as he strides away, back into the enclosure of the forest, leaving her to ruminate why he came and left her unscathed.

The parting words are as close to a promise as a Sith will come.


End file.
